GAMETECH: The dawn of penal servertude

MOST games have rules, but few have laws. In fact, the only law gamers usually pay any attention to is that of Gordon Moore, who observed that the rate of internet trolls tends to double every two years (or maybe it was the number of transistors on a circuit). Gaming has traditionally been about winning or losing, not about law and order.

That all started to change, of course, when online communities began to take shape. Suddenly, behaviour and social etiquette could make or break a game’s fun factor. The rules expanded from button-pressing to, well, pressing someone’s buttons.

This is especially true in massive social games like EverQuest 2, where the entire experience relies on the conduct of other players. So the developers of EverQuest decided on a solution — this week, they created a penal colony.